How Getting Fired Sparked a Purpose Driven Social Enterprise with Merry Korn

Welcome And Mary’s Turning Point

Eric Dickmann 0:01

Welcome to Beyond Expertise, a podcast about identity reinvention for professionals ready to explore who they are beyond their titles and careers. I'm your host, Eric Dickmann. Today, I'm excited to welcome Mary Korn to the podcast. Mary's story began with a moment many professionals fear most, being unexpectedly fired. Just months into what she thought would be her dream role, she found herself facing uncertainty, loss, and the difficult question of what came next. But what initially felt like a devastating setback eventually became the catalyst for something much bigger. Inspired by the lessons of resilience and purpose passed down through her family, Mary went on to build a social enterprise that employed more than 1,300 people across 30 states, creating meaningful opportunities for veterans, people with disabilities, and others facing barriers to work. Along the way, she discovered that some of life's most painful disruptions can become unlikely invitations toward work that feels more aligned and meaningful. Today, we'll talk about career setbacks, reinvention, purpose, and what happens when the thing that knocks you off your path may actually be redirecting you toward the life that you were meant to build. Let's get ready to go beyond expertise Mary, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad that you could be a guest today.

Merry Korn 1:27

I'm honored to

Early Career Misfit And Big Ambition

Eric Dickmann 1:31

Mary, the way I like to start my shows is I like to ask the guest to go back in time a little bit, all the way back to when you first started your professional career, and talk a little bit about what your aspirations were at the time. Did you end up in that first job being aligned with where you wanted to go or where you thought you wanted to go at the time?

Merry Korn 1:54

Oh, I, I always felt this yearning to have my own business.

Eric Dickmann 2:00

Oh, yeah, right from the very beginning.

Merry Korn 2:02

the very beginning, I didn't know what that business would be, but I always felt like a fish out of water. And I always felt like the name of the game is please my boss, but it was never about pleasing myself. So I contorted myself into being a corporate animal that I wasn't. And, uh, and I was never happy working for anyone else. I knew I was destined to own my own business.

Eric Dickmann 2:28

What kind of a job did you have? What was one of the first jobs that you had as a professional?

Merry Korn 2:33

I was a hospital social worker, which I was really ill-suited to do. But I have a sister who is a clinical social worker, and, even though your siblings have passions, it doesn't mean they're yours. And she was meant to be a social worker, and I am absolutely not.

Eric Dickmann 2:50

Yeah.

Merry Korn 2:51

But what I am meant to do is use business to fulfill my social mission. Because you can absolutely combine a social mission and a for-profit mission.

Eric Dickmann 3:06

Well, I find a lot of people that feel some misalignment at the beginning of their careers, often they don't know what they wanna do or what they have the skills to do, and their path through their series of corporate jobs, really almost without them knowing it, gives them the skills and experience that they need to truly create the business ultimately that they end up creating. So you started out in social work. How did that develop over time? Where did you end up going with it?

Merry Korn 3:33

I left it after two years because I realized it was completely misaligned with who I am. I wasn't meant to be a clinical... Social workers are very special people. I'm not one of them.

Eric Dickmann 3:47

Yeah. So what was the next phase?

Success On Paper And Soul Depletion

Merry Korn 3:50

I went to work for a medical management firm that I kept climbing the corporate ladder. I became a senior vice president with a corporate plane, and it meant absolutely nothing. I always felt like I was walking through life wearing two left shoes. Never felt right anywhere.

Eric Dickmann 4:10

Yeah. Even though you had achieved a fair degree of success in that corporate role?

Merry Korn 4:15

Externally, yeah. I made really good money, uh, traveled all the time. It didn't bring me any joy at all.

Eric Dickmann 4:25

Mm. How did you find that manifest in your life, wearing those two hats? Being a good corporate citizen during the day, and then maybe at home not feeling quite the same amount of satisfaction?

Merry Korn 4:35

Soul depleting. It depleted my soul. It depleted my essence. I knew there was something out there, but what I struggled with was, why am I here? And, and I wonder, uh, I, I wonder, Eric, how many of your listeners struggle with, what is my purpose? Um, a- about a month ago, I was speaking to a room of 40 people, and I just randomly asked the audience, "How many of you know your meaning?" And of 40 people, how many people do you think raised their hand?

Eric Dickmann 5:06

Probably almost nobody.

Merry Korn 5:08

Five. But

Eric Dickmann 5:09

Five, yeah.

Merry Korn 5:11

that means 35 had no clue of why they're here. But I knew whatever I was doing, it wasn't it.

Eric Dickmann 5:22

Isn't that interesting? Because, we've had Simon Sinek and Know Your Why, and all these books that are really out there to try to help people discover their purpose. But oftentimes it's lived experience that helps you figure out what it is that is actually your purpose. I don't think everybody wakes up one day and said, "Oh, my purpose is this," right? They look at their life, they look at what they enjoy, they look at what they're good at and say, "Well, how can I apply that to something more meaningful?" Is that what you find as well?

Merry Korn 5:54

I just found on my whole journey, it took me till the age of 46 to find out-- at least I found it, and some really smart people who live around the corner from me, and they're both, uh, they were both, uh, doing the work, career coaches. They said a lot of people get through life and never do their life's work. And, and I can't, Eric, I can't imagine that. Why are you alive if you're not gonna be doing the work y- you're aligned to do? That's a life of silent desperation.

Eric Dickmann 6:25

So you're, you're working your, your way up the corporate ladder. The money's good, the perks are good. You're feeling this lack of alignment. At that time, where did you go to try to sort that out in your mind? Or had you just not reached that point yet? Were you reading books? Were you going to conferences? Did you have a mentor? How were you expressing this dissatisfaction?

Career Coaching And Finding The “Why”

Merry Korn 6:49

I think this is what they mean by imposter syndrome. I looked good from the outside. Inside, it was just ripped up inside. And I read all kinds of books, and I did see a career coach, and I can't say enough about career coaches. The career coaches I saw gave me a lot, a lot that was helpful. And the biggest thing it gave me was it taught me, based on all the testing, that I was meant to run a for-profit social enterprise. I, I knew what I was meant to do. I just didn't know how to get there until I was fired. So getting fired was the greatest gift in the world, and it didn't feel like it. And, um, I, I, I wanna share with you and, with your listeners that I wrote a book called Fired to Inspired, and it's all about the journey of finding out what I was finally meant to do. And I really was meant to start this for-profit social enterprise that hired people with the greatest barriers to work. So I started this company that was enormously successful. I grew it to 1,300 employees, and I sold it. And we hired disabled vets, people with disabilities. Uh, we hired military spouses and people living in, uh, the most impoverished parts of the country. I was meant to do that work, and I was meant to give good jobs to people that society has cast aside.

Eric Dickmann 8:17

I, I love that, but I'm not gonna let you get to the end of your story so quickly. Being fired, being fired is a big deal. And in that... So you're, you're seeing a career coach, you know you've got this lack of alignment, you're feeling like you're narrowing in on what you wanna do, and then bam-o, you get fired from your job. I mean, just walk me through that. How did you feel in that moment?

Getting Fired And The Single Mom Freefall

Merry Korn 8:42

Oh, well, what I did was, I had been at this, with the same company. I was one of the four founders. I couldn't do it anymore. I was brain dead. I felt like a zombie. So I took the first job that came along. Ne- for your listeners, never, never, ever, ever do that, ever. So I took a job I was totally not a fit for. Um, I'll just be upfront. I'm Jewish. It was a religious organization. Uh, one of the questions in my interview is how do you feel about saying prayers to Jesus before every meeting? As a Jew, um, and a single mother, my immediate response is I need to, I, I, I need to make a move. I need to make any move, just a move, and that's never, ever a way to plan your career trajectory.

Eric Dickmann 9:32

For sure

Merry Korn 9:34

So I lasted two months, and As a single mother, I did not know how I was gonna make ends meet. I didn't know if I'd live under a bridge. It was horrifying and terrifying and the scariest time of my life.

Eric Dickmann 9:47

I can believe that.

Merry Korn 9:48

in in, the depths of that despair, I built a career that was one of the great loves of my life.

Eric Dickmann 9:56

So talk about that whole process. So you're out after two months. Now you- you've got some clarity, it sounds like, about what your passion might be and what you would like to build as a, as an entrepreneur, but you also have a limited runway, right? A single mom, two kids. You've gotta get some income coming in here. How do you decide to go from that moment to start to build something? 'Cause building takes time.

Merry Korn 10:25

I couldn't find a job. I couldn't relocate my kids, they were in high school. And, um, so I did a couple things. Uh, and this is gonna be a little woo woo, Eric, and if you're not suited for it, we don't have to

Eric Dickmann 10:39

Br- bring on the woo-woo. Let's go

The Alley Prayer And A Strange Answer

Merry Korn 10:42

Okay, so a week after I was fired, I walked through an alley. And I love that alley 'cause it's very peaceful and pretty with flowers and a very private time. And I was praying, and I said, "Okay, God" And, and I'm not, not proselytizing. S- so I prayed to this divine presence and I said, "You gotta help me here 'cause I am so lost. I don't, I, I, I don't know what to do. You gotta tell me what-- Just tell me what to do, and I'll make a deal with you. If you tell me what to do, I promise I will dedicate my life to paying it forward," and I did. And so about 10 minutes into this walk, I heard, I heard a voice, and the voice said two words, and they made no sense. The voice said, "Medical associations." And I'm like, "What?" And the voice said, "Medical associations." And I thought, "I'm not gonna question it." I immediately went home and made a list of all the CEOs of medical associations in the state of Ohio, which I'm based out of Columbus. And I started having-- This is what my career touch-- uh, coach taught me, is how to do informational interviews.

Informational Interviews That Create Opportunity

Merry Korn 12:04

And it's a far more, uh... It, it's appro- an approach to finding a job or career or starting a business that gives you much more agency, 'cause you're not waiting for, uh, a job posting. So I made outbound calls. Uh, but first I asked friends who knew whom, so that when I left messages, I would say, "My friend George suggested I call-" Or I used a warm lead, and my script was very simple. "Hi, I have 20 years of marketing, sales, and healthcare experience. I just wanna meet with you to understand how do I transition my skills into your field?" After six weeks, one of the CEOs said, "I don't have a job, but we need, we need someone to raise money, and we will give you a, um, we will give you a retainer, and we'll pay you commission." And that's how my business started, and for the first seven years, I started hiring people and, uh, to, to raise money. But what I discovered is that if I worked with people who had severe disabilities, they stayed with me, and they had a much greater work ethic. So I started hiring people who were blind, paraplegic, quadriplegic, people who had severe disabilities. The average time they had been unemployed was at least seven years. And I put them to work, and they stayed, and they were incredibly successful. And they were so successful that word got out with the Rehab Services Commission, and without looking at... And this is like that woo woo, that tap, this divine tap on the shoulder. I was asked if I wanted an $80,000 grant.

Hiring People With Disabilities And Finding Heart

Merry Korn 13:56

I wouldn't get the money, but the state would spend the money any way they could to help me grow the business. They wanted me to keep hiring people with severe disabilities. So I found my heart. I found my passion. I hired this one man who was a quadriplegic veteran. He came back from Vietnam fine. He fell. He came... He was fine. He was a former plant manager. He fell off a rooftop, broke his back, and hadn't worked in 29 years. He wanted to work so badly that on days he was too sick to get out of bed, we had a rehab engineer create a, uh, hospital table over his bed so he could work from his bed making outbound calls. So I decided, uh, uh, that... What I discovered with the association sponsorships was it was, uh, episodic, 'cause once we raised the money, I had to put people in the field.

Government Contracts And Scaling Real Impact

Eric Dickmann 15:01

Mm-hmm.

Merry Korn 15:02

So I decided to go for government contracts because government contracts can be very large and long-term. And so without... And, and by the way, your listeners, you don't have to know what you're doing because, uh, I never knew what I was doing. I just, just jump in the pool and swim.

Eric Dickmann 15:21

Yeah, that's very interesting because what I hear is that you knew that you wanted to do something. You knew that you wanted to help people. It didn't magically start one day. It was through a process of outreach, and then one opportunity leads to another opportunity. You learn something along the way. That becomes another opportunity that you can leverage, and all of a sudden, you're creating a business that not only sustains you, but has a real impact on the, on people in almost unexpected ways. Yeah, that had to be tremendously fulfilling.

Merry Korn 15:57

It, it was the work of my lifetime. I grew the business twenty years and sold it two years ago.

Eric Dickmann 16:05

Hmm. Was that hard to do, to leave it?

Merry Korn 16:09

I, I wanted it to go to somebody who had the youth to maybe make the whole concept go global. That was my overall vision. But once you sell your baby, you have no, you have no say of what happens.

Eric Dickmann 16:25

Hmm. So that was

Selling The Company And Starting Chapter Three

Eric Dickmann 16:28

kind of a second chapter for you, and now you're in a third chapter. So talk about, what do you do after you put your heart and soul into a business, sell it, and then all of a sudden say, "Okay, now what?"

Merry Korn 16:39

I knew that my next calling was to talk about my journey and be a beacon of light to your listeners who want to start a business, who want to do work that they're aligned with, that aligns with their interests, with their values. I, I feel I want to be a beacon of light. I-- Eric, if you and I touch one person, we've accomplished something major.

Eric Dickmann 17:04

Mm-hmm. I agree with that. And I know that you wrote a book. Was that book something that you had been working on throughout the time in the business, or was that a project that you started once the business had been sold?

Merry Korn 17:17

Uh, I've been working on it for four years, and it's just about to go into the publisher hopefully next week.

Eric Dickmann 17:24

That's really exciting. That's gotta be a real sense of fulfillment to have that done.

Merry Korn 17:28

Well, the other thing is, is I don't know how to publish a book. I don't know how to market a book. I'm figuring it out.

Eric Dickmann 17:35

Mm-hmm. What did you learn about yourself, uh, when you wrote it?

Merry Korn 17:40

It's very hard. It's a very isolating experience, and I keep wanting to write a really, really good book. And you're in marketing, and your background... I, I-- When I looked at your LinkedIn, you've been a CMO for a good part of your life. You always want to write the best marketing script,

Eric Dickmann 18:02

That's right.

Merry Korn 18:04

and I always thought I wasn't a bad writer, but I've never read a best-selling book.

Eric Dickmann 18:08

Hmm.

Merry Korn 18:08

It's a different type of writing.

Eric Dickmann 18:10

For sure. And it's also, uh, a vulnerable position to be in, right? Because you have to share some very deeply personal things to make a good book.

Merry Korn 18:20

Yes. Yeah.

Eric Dickmann 18:23

So you've written the book, or you're writing the book. It's going to be published, and then how are you spending your time? You're speaking. You're, you're helping others. How are you getting the word out on your message?

Merry Korn 18:35

I'm doing these podcasts, I'm speaking. I'm gonna become much more aggressive in the marketing once it's done. It helps to have the book published. It's not published yet, but I'm gonna be doing a lot of pre-marketing of the book to just get the word out.

Eric Dickmann 18:52

Hmm. Do you find it different, you've been

Writing A Book And Marketing Yourself

Eric Dickmann 18:55

in this business where you talked about going to get government contracts and grants and things. So you're selling a business. You're selling a service. Do you find it very different when you're selling yourself?

Merry Korn 19:06

Yeah. I used to be really gun-shy about social media and liked being under the radar. And when you're marketing yourself... I mean, I actually had somebody say, "You're annoying me. Your, your posts are coming up all the time." And I'm like, "So just delete me." But if you're-- everybody has an opinion about how you show up on social media. And I just decided, uh, that's just one fear I'm just happy to deal with. People will either like my social media or they won't. But, uh, a-and I'm speaking to a marketing professional. If you wanna market your book, it's all about your following. And how else are you gonna build your following on social media unless you constantly are at it and building traction?

Eric Dickmann 19:52

Yes. Do you f-- One of the things that when I talk to guests, especially when they're at a similar stage of life to what you're describing, is that they've gone from a very hectic career world where you start your day off with emails in the morning, meetings, you know, sometimes work carries throughout the day even into the evening, to then changing your profession to something where you are more marketing yourself. And all of a sudden there are all these free slots in your day where you're working at a much more leisurely pace. You own your life a little bit more. How have you adjusted to the craziness of owning a business and having to deal with employees to now your time is your own?

Merry Korn 20:36

used to being like the hamster up the hamster wheel.

Eric Dickmann 20:50

Yeah.

Merry Korn 20:51

it's just become a way of life. It's something I have to work on.

Eric Dickmann 20:55

Yeah. That's a drastic change, especially when your days are now consumed with social media posts and interviews and speaking and writing and that. But it's a different pace, for sure. So looking out, what do you see as the evolution of this next chapter over the next couple of years? Are you gonna write a sequel to the book? Hmm.

A New Book Rooted In Family History

Merry Korn 21:14

I was meant to write this book. I think I have another book. Uh, and Eric, this is a whole part of my history. Uh, my, my journey had so much to do with my mother, who was a Holocaust survivor. A- And she was the one who stared down Nazis, escaped from the death march. I feel like I have a lot more work to do related to my mother's story as a Holocaust survivor, which means going to Poland. I wanna see the town she grew up in. I wanna go to the concentration camp she went to. I feel like my life has been riddled with unknowns, and I feel like that's the next book that I've got coming. It'll be a very different book.

Eric Dickmann 22:04

A very different book for sure. A deeply personal book. Well, I think it's fascinating, and I just love the fact that you were able to turn something into something so meaningful and help so many people along the way. That had to be incredibly fulfilling for you after what must have been a painful experience, getting fired from a job. This is just the kind of story of reinvention that I love to talk

Where To Find Mary And Final Thoughts

Eric Dickmann 22:26

about. Mary, where can people find out more about you, more about this upcoming book, online?

Merry Korn 22:32

Uh, my website, www.firedtoinspired.com. Or go to my LinkedIn, Mary Korn. M-E-R-Y K-O-R-N.

Eric Dickmann 22:44

Mary, this has been great. I've really enjoyed our conversation today, and I appreciate you taking the time to talk to our listeners.

Merry Korn 22:50

Thank you. Thank you, Eric

Eric Dickmann 22:52

Thanks for listening to Beyond Expertise. You can find show notes, resources, and links mentioned during this episode at podcast.ericdickman.com. If this conversation resonated with you, I hope you'll join me again next time as we continue exploring what it means to reinvent ourselves beyond our careers, titles, and expertise.